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PRESENTED BY" 



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Abraham Lincoln 




— . ^aV this nahoR. under God. shdll 

ZZhas^G a new birt-k of froodom. and thaf 
^vernmcair of \he peoplQ. by the ^le dndihr 
jfiQ-pcopie. shall not per.sh. froru Hic odf^u" 

Courtesy of Kansas City Star- 



By James M. Coburn 



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Read at Westminster Congregational 

Church, Kansas City, Missouri, 

February 10, 1921 



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LINCOLN 

It will be one of my purposes in this paper to show, by a 
sketch of Lincoln's ancestry, early life and subsequent career, 
how truly he stands alone, of all men who have been the product 
of this new Western Civilization. 

Even those of us who were living at the time of his active 
public life, and who have since read and studied what others 
have written and said of him, pause with almost breathless won- 
der each time we are led through those avenues of a study of his 
life, to some new view of his many-sided greatness. The farther 
we get, on the plane of national existence, away from the rugged 
and mountainous turmoil of the period of 1860 to 1865, the 
smaller and more indistinct appear all the lesser notable figures, 
and the higher and more sublime in its solitary grandeur towers 
up the character of Abraham Lincoln. We may well ask, there- 
fore, from whence came this man, who more than any other 
man of the past century, more than perhaps any man of many 
other centuries, embodies all that is best in the hopes and as- 
pirations of mankind in their struggle for something better. 

ANCESTRY 

From the first knowledge to be had of his ancestry, we learn 
that the earliest known ancestor of Abraham Lincoln was Samuel 
Lincoln, who emigrated from the west of England and settled at 
Hingham, Mass., a few years after the landing of the Pilgrims. 
Stated by occupations in his ancestry, we find that it includes a 
weaver, two blacksmiths, a farmer and a carpenter. 

The grandfather, who was Abraham I, was killed by the 
Indians in Kentucky in 1784; his son, Thomas, father of Abraham, 
who was with his father at the time, was rescued from death by 
the well directed rifle shot of an elder brother. Lincoln's father 
is described as easy-going, slow to anger, but formidable when 
aroused, as he was physically a powerful man. As to worldly 
possessions, being of an uneasy and roving disposition, he exem- 
plified the usual fate of a rolling stone. Not less than eight 
moves of his are recorded from the birth of his son Abraham, 
until the boy reached the age of twenty-one. After Abraham 
was earning money of his own, he bought his father a farm 
of forty acres, where he lived until he died, frequently helped 
by gifts of money and provisions by his then rising son. 

On June 10, 1806, Thomas Lincoln was married to his 
cousin, Nancy Hanks, a niece of his employer for whom he 
worked as a carpenter, and of whom he learned his trade. 



Nancy Hanks' father being dead, she was living with an aunt, 
Mrs. Berry, who was a person of superior character, and with 
attainments above her surroundings. 

For a time after their marriage they lived at a hamlet 
called Elizabethtown, where the husband worked at his trade, 
but two years later moved to a farm near Hodgensville in 
Hardin County, Kentucky, where on the 12th day of February, 
1809, Abraham was born. Four years later the family moved to 
a more comfortable house at Knob Creek, not far away, where 
they lived three years. These years were, from all accounts, 
undoubtedly years of privation and hardship. Then the roving 
spirit seized Thomas Lincoln again, and loading all the family 
possessions on a flat boat, they floated down the Ohio and settled 
at what is now Gentryville, in Spencer County, Indiana, where 
they built a cabin fourteen feet square, with one side out; 
they lived more than a year in this rude shelter, the boy 
Abraham, sleeping in the loft on a bed of leaves over one end 
of the cabin. This cabin was improved in the second year, and 
in it the family lived for eleven years; but in the meantime, 
in the year 1818, when Lincoln was ten years of age, the 
mother died, her death probably being directly or indirectly 
the result of the hardships and privations of the frontier life. 

Until the last few years it was singular how little we could 
learn of the mother of America's greatest son. It would be sup- 
posed that after the son became famous, details of his mother's 
character and life would have been sought and found from 
Lincoln himself; but it has been noted as a fact that Lincoln was 
always silent when this topic, or any other connected with his 
boyhood, was touched upon; his silence, it is believed, was a 
result of a shrinking on his part from recalling the poverty and 
hardships of those days. 

For many years there were cruel and persistent reports 
concerning Lincoln's parentage, the origin of which no doubt, 
dated back to some political campaign, in which Lincoln was a 
candidate, previous to his nomination — a fair specimen of par- 
tisan mud-slinging, which time does not seem to have entirely 
eradicated. 

About fifteen years ago, one of the Hanks family, a lady liv- 
ing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, 
in preparing a book of genealogy of the Hanks family, became so 
much interested in the mother of Abraham Lincoln, that she de- 
termined, if possible, to get at the real facts concerning Nancy 
Hanks' childhood and later life, and especially as to the cloud 
cast over her and her illustrious son, as to the legitimacy of the 
child. 

The thanks of every lover of the memory of Abraham 
Lincoln are due to Mrs. Hitchcock for her careful and diligent 
search, which resulted in her unearthing full documentary evi- 
dence, showing the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy 
Hanks on June 12th, 1806, in Washington County, Kentucky. 



Mrs. Hitchcock, in her little book, which can be seen in 
our public library, also develops the fact that the Hanks' 
family in America was begfun by a settler from England in 1G99, 
at or near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and further, that they were a 
remarkable family. Ihey are spoken of by a writer of the 18th 
century as "a remarkably inventive family" and as " a family of 
founders." 

It has been shown that they cast the first bells that were 
made in America, and also the first cannon. 

They also started the first silk mills in this country, and 
that one member of the family was distinguished as a scientific 
investigator. From these interesting facts it may be safely 
assumed by those who believe in heredity, that from his mother, 
Lincoln inherited the broad vision and mental grasp, that made 
possible his achievements as the foremost statesman of his age. 

For more than a year his sister, Sarah, then little more than 
eleven years old, cared for the household. Of the poverty of the 
family at this time there is abundant evidence; and there is a 
pathos in the sight of this eleven year old girl attempting to 
take the place of the mother, in the care of the little cabin, with 
her father and younger brother as her only companions. Stand- 
ing with uncovered heads in the presence of this scene, repre- 
sentative of many such, both then and now, even in our very 
midst, we may well say with England's great poet: 

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil. 

Their homely joy, and their destiny obscure; 
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor." 

In 1819 Thomas Lincoln married Mrs. Sallie Bush Johnson, a 
widow with three children, a woman undoubtedly of much 
energy and nobility of character. While she brought with her 
nothing that would be considered riches, she did bring house- 
hold furniture which added greatly to the comfort of the family. 
Better than this, she brought habits of order and thrift which 
were of more value still. Contrary to the expectation of friends 
and predictions of the public, almost invariably the accompani- 
ments of a second marriage under such circumstances, the mar- 
riage not only proved to be a happy one for the pair themselves, 
but it provided a pleasant home for all the children, the step- 
mother always treating Abraham as if he were her own child. 
She appears to have understood the boy Abraham better than 
any one else — to have recognized his talents and encouraged him 
in his studies. It is interesting to mention at this point, that 
she lived until after the war, and that her last resting place 
is now marked by a handsome monument erected in her mem- 
ory by the still living son of Abraham Lincoln. 

This period of comparative comfort in the life of the grow- 
ing lad, takes us up to the time he was sixteen years of age, 
during which time he attended school for a few weeks in each 
year, and, if we may judge from the best information to be 
had, these schools were far from being what would be con- 
sidered at the present time, good schools. 

3 



It is of interest to note at this point the books that he read. 
The following is a list of them: The Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, 
Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, a History of the United States 
and the General Statutes of the State of Indiana. Excepting 
the last, these books call for no comment. That a boy of his 
age could have waded through the Statutes of Indiana shows 
that either reading matter must have been very scarce with 
him, or else that at this time the natural bent of his mind was 
showing its tendency towards the law. In support of this last 
theory it is asserted by some of his biographers as a positive 
fact, that his determination to study law began at this point. 

The boy Abraham, from a physical standpoint, was unusu- 
ally large and mature from the age of ten years and upward. 
By the time he had reached his sixteenth year he was prac- 
tically a man grown. As a gymnast, and in the exhibition of all 
feats of strength, he had no equal in all the surrounding country. 
At this early age even, he had acquired the reputation of being 
the best story teller for miles around, thus fully shadowing forth 
the high reputation he held in this line until the date of his 
death. 

His great passion for fairness and justice had also estab- 
lished itself at this age, and as a consequence he was in much 
demand among his fellows as a go-between and referee in all 
matters where unbiased judgment was required. 

At the age of nineteen he had his first sight of the outside 
world, having been employed by a storekeeper to go with his 
son with a flat boat load of provisions to New Orleans. We 
have very little, if any record that this trip had any special 
bearing on his future life. 

On March 1, 1830, Abraham, then being twenty-one years old, 
the whole family moved by wagon to Macon, Illinois, on the north 
side of the Sangamon river. After helping his parents to get 
fairly settled in his new home, he started out for himself. He had 
reached by this time an unusual height, six feet four inches; he 
was entirely devoid of superfluous flesh, and his biographers 
state that he could out run and out-wrestle any man in his parts. 

About a year after this, being in the employ of a store- 
keeper at the village where he lived, he entered the employ of 
one David Offutt, and contracted with him to take a flat boat 
load of merchandise to New Orleans, his pay being $12 per 
month. It was on this occasion that Lincoln first came in con- 
tact with the worst side of slavery, by visiting the slave market 
in New Orleans. Leaving the auction block where a mulatto 
girl, so white that only a practiced eye could detect in her any 
negro blood, had been sold amid brutal remarks from the bid- 
ders, he turned to a companion and said, "If I live, and if I 
ever have a chance, I will hit that thing, and hit it hard." 

A year later Mr. Lincoln engaged in a mercantile venture 
with a partner at New Salem, Illinois, which resulted disastrously, 
the partner running away and leaving Lincoln to manage the 
wreck as best he could. This transaction left Lincoln $1200 in 



debt. With his scrupulous sense of honor, he gave his own per- 
sonal notes to every one of the creditors of the defunct firm, 
and it is proper to state at this time that he was seventeen 
years in paying off this debt. On one occasion, a few years later, 
one of his creditors becoming impatient, levied upon his horse 
and surveying outfit, and but for the intervention of a friend 
who bought the horse and outfit in at sheriff's sale and turned 
it back to Lincoln, he would have been without means of earn- 
ing his livelihood. His action in this case and a few instances 
like that of his walking seven miles one night after business 
hours to deliver a few ounces of tea to a customer to correct a 
mistake in weights, gave him the name "Honest Abe" which 
followed him all through the remainder of his life. 

About this time he was appointed postmaster at New Salem, 
and at the same time was appointed deputy under the county 
surveyor, and for several years supported himself and paid off a 
portion of his debts through these two offices, although, it may 
be said that the emoluments from his office as posrmaster \\ere 
so unconsiderable as to be almost ludicrous. 

In 1837, being then 27 years of age, and having for a few 
months studied law, he removed to Springfield, Illinois, and en- 
tered into partnership with one Stewart. 

The length of time alloted me will not permit of going very 
much into the details of his life at this time. Suffice it to say 
that he went through the trials, poverty and hardship of a poor 
attorney in a sparsely settled country, following the court as 
it moved about on its circuit. 

It will be proper, however, at this time to touch upon Lin- 
coln's love affairs, which terminated in 1842 by his marriage to 
Miss Todd. With so much natural diffidence, and with a personal 
appearance against him both as a boy and a young man, he 
went little into the society of his several abiding places; not- 
withstanding this, however, at the age of 25 he passed through 
an affair of the heart which undoubtedly left a shadow over his 
whole future life. An acquaintance with a charming lady, 
then living at New Salem continued under circumstances 
where sympathy for her under trying circumstances was only 
natural, eventually ripened into mutual love, followed by a 
formal engagement. The death of the young lady not long 
after plunged Lincoln into such profound grief that for a 
time there was no balm of consolation, and his friends feared 
he might take his own life. At this point in his life it is 
believed that the profound melancholy, which appears to have 
been inherited from his mother, was first developed. Be this 
as it may, there is strong reason to believe that in the grave of 
sweet Anna Rutledge was buried his only passionate love. Not 
long afterwards he made the acquaintance of Miss Todd, of Ken- 
tucky, who afterwards became his wife. The course of true love 
again did not run smoothly; after becoming engaged, natural 
differences in taste asserted themselves to such a degree that, 
at Lincoln's request, he was released from the engagement. His 



high sense of honor never left him easy for a moment after- 
wards, and in letters to his friends he unsparingly condemned 
himself for his inconstancy. Finally, acting no doubt under 
the stress of a sense of duty, rather than any stronger emotion, 
be became reconciled to his love, and on the 4th of November, 
1842, he and Miss Todd were married at the house of Miss Todd's 
brother-in-law at Springfield, Illinois. 

A careful reading of the testimony of all Lincoln's most in- 
timate friends would preclude any possibility of asserting with 
truth that the marriage was a happy one. Perhaps, it was all 
that could be expected of the parties to the solemn contract, 
where one married from a sense of duty and the other to gratify 
a desire to shine in official society. 

It will also be well to notice the habits of his life at this 
time. 

In the matter of the use of intoxicants, Lincoln was a total 
abstainer; his most intimate friends testify they never knew him 
to use liquor at all. When the committee of the Chicago Con- 
vention came to his house to notify him of his nomination, after 
doing their work some of his friends suggested bringing in wine 
for the refreshment of the committee. Lincoln positively ob- 
jected, saying that he did not wish the custom of his hospitality 
changed from its simplicity now that he was a candidate for 
president, and that he would not be a party to putting the cup 
to his neighbors' lips. He not only practiced temperance, but 
preached it actively in his earlier career, and as a member of 
the Sons of Temperance, often spoke on public occasions in be- 
half of total abstinence. Col. Hay, one of his secretaries and 
biographers, says, "Mr. Lincoln was a man of extremely tem- 
perate habits. He made no use of either whiskey or tobacco 
during all the years I knew him." 

John Nicolay, his private secretary, says, "During all the 
five years of my service as his private secretary I never saw 
him drink a glass of whiskey, and I never knew or heard of 
his taking one." 

Gambling, or anything that approached it, he held in de- 
testation. 

There are some evidences that as a young man he fell into 
the common habit of the use of profane language, but if this 
be so, it was a habit that did not follow him into the period of 
his public life. 

The period of Lincoln's life from the time he moved to 
Springfield until he was called therefrom to become the chief 
magistrate of the nation, is one upon which we have a large 
mass of evidence. He early took part in the controversy over 
the question of slavery then raging, not ranging himself at 
the time with the abolitionists on the one hand, nor with those 
who were for extending slavery, on the other. 

The first public office which he held was as a representative 
to the legislature of Illinois. There is nothing in the record of 
his actions as such representative to give any indication of the 



power he was afterwards to become, but on the other hand, 
there is abundant evidence to show that he conducted himself 
with that regard for his own personal honor, and for the general 
good, that characterized the remaining years of his life. 

A few years later he was in the halls of Congress, a repre- 
sentative from the Springfield district. There are a few ex- 
tracts from some of his speeches made at that time, which give 
some evidence of the mental breadth he was acquiring, and of 
his attitude upon the then engrossing slavery question. As- 
piring to a seat in the senate of the United States, he was a 
few years afterwards defeated by Judge Douglass, after a very 
exciting political campaign, during which the famous joint de- 
bates were held with Douglass upon the question of the exten- 
sion of slavery. 

This brings his life up to the period when, on the 10th of 
June, 1860, at Chicago, he was nominated by the Republican 
party as its candidate for the presidency. Opposed in this can- 
didacy were Judge Douglass, who represented the moderate 
Democrats, particularly of the North. John C. Breckenridge, 
who represented the extreme southern Democrats and Edward 
Bell for the moderate Democrats in the southern states. 

After a campaign, the strain and excitement of which no 
one at this date can fully understand, Lincoln was, on the 5th 
day of November, chosen President of the United States. 

We may not know the depth or variety of his feelings as he 
found himself lifted by the suffrages of his countrymen to this 
high office. Knowing as no one else in the country probably 
did, the strenuousness of the demands which the troublous times 
would make upon him, we catch a thrill of these feelings in his 
farewell to his Springfield neighbors, a speech abounding in ex- 
pressions of good-will toward his neighbors and charity for those 
of all sections of the country who might differ from him; tinged 
all through with a strain of sadness through which can now be 
read a presentiment that he was never to return to them alive. 

Of his midnight journey to Washington, the doubts as to his 
being seated through machinations against him of the apostles 
of secession, the confusion and distress in which he found every- 
thing at Washington, are too long and complicated to be treated 
of in detail; suffice it to say that amid all this darkness, 
distress and confusion, Lincoln held steadily on his way in the 
full belief that when the situation should be further developed, 
the good sense and patriotism of the whole people of the North 
would be behind him. 

THE INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES IN HIS ADMINISTRATION 

I have not time to more than touch upon the difficulties 
which surrounded Lincoln upon his being introduced into the 
office of President of the United States on the 4th of March, 
1861. He found a government largely in the hands of those who 
were plotting its overthrow; an empty treasury; a small and 

7 



scattered army and a dearth of arms and ammunition with which 
to arm those who might wish to come forward to the defense 
of the nation. 

His great desire to unite all the various elements of the 
north, embracing nearly every shade of opinion on the then im- 
portant slavery question, is shown by the fact that in the se- 
lection of his cabinet, he gave four of the most important posts 
to those who were his rivals in the contest for the high office 
which he had secured at the hands of the people of his country. 

Let any one who supposes, not knowing the facts, that com- 
mon patriotism in the face of the death struggle for the preser- 
vation of the Union, made Lincoln's cabinet a united and har- 
monious one, read of the difficulties and jealousies which at 
once, and all through the war, taxed to the utmost the man 
whose wisdom would entitle him to be ranked with that of 
Solomon, and his patience with that of Moses. 

Seward was a great and patriotic man, and a great Secre- 
tary of State, yet within six weeks after Lincoln's inaugura- 
tion, in a letter to the President, he proposed in substance 
that Lincoln should abdicate most of the duties and prerogatives 
of his high office and turn them over to a no less person than 
Seward himself. The letter from President Lincoln in reply is 
an historical document, and settled once and for all the question 
of who was to be President. 

Stanton, a man of iron will, patriotic to the highest degree, 
honest and capable, but irascible, impolitic, impatient, and often 
domineering. As illustrating one phase of the relation between 
President Lincoln and the great War Secretary, the well known 
incident of Lincoln's reply to some representative who wished 
an appointment made by Stanton, but which Stanton refused, 
is to the point. After hearing the complaint that Stanton re- 
fused to make the appointment, Lincoln said sadly, "I do not 
seem to have much influence with this administration." 

HIS ELOQUENCE 

As a public speaker, Lincoln lacked some of those qualities 
which are deemed necessary to a great orator; his voice, though 
penetrating and far-carrying, was high and shrill; his tall, un- 
gainly and somewhat ungraceful figure was against him; but 
from the day of his famous Cooper Union speech in New York, 
his reputation as a forceful speaker was established throughout 
the entire North. 

Those who read carefully what is preserved of his speeches 
from the time of his great debate with Judge Douglass on, can- 
not fail in any of them to note their many telling bits of politi- 
cal wisdom, expressed in terse, and sometimes almost homely 
Saxon language; but it was not until the stress of the war had 
inspired his tongue and pen that the best of his public speaking 
was made. It is a singular circumstance, however, that hie-h as 
the regard is in which his Gettysburg speech is now held,,, at 
the time of its delivery, it fell absolutey flat upon the compara- 

8 



tively small audience there assembled. So far as we can learn, 
and a magazine article upon this subject was written not long 
ago by one of the persons present on the occasion, Edward 
Everett, who was the orator of the occasion, seemed to have 
been the only one present who realized that anything remark- 
able had been uttered. 

As we cannot too often read this gem of English composi- 
tion, I will repeat it in your hearing: 

"Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth 
upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We 
are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of 
those who have gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But 
in a large sense we cannot dedicate, — we cannot consecrate, — we 
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power 
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remem- 
ber, what v/e say here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the 
great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we 
may take increased devotion to that cause for which they here 
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly re- 
solve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that Govern- 
ment of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 

Passing from this occasion, we come to the second inaugural 
address, a passage from which I will read, the notes of which 
fall upon our ears, coming as they did a few months only be- 
fore his death, with something of the suggestion of a tolling 
bell. 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this scourge 
of war may speedily pass away; yet if it be God's will that it 
continue until the wealth piled by bondsmen by two hundred 
and fifty years' unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every 
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sworn, as was said three thousand years ago, 
so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are 
true and righteous altogether. 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's 
wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and 
for his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all 
nations." 



HIS RELIGION 

When we come to the subject of Lincoln's religious feelings 
and belief, we come to one of those subjects upon which testi- 
mony seems so strangely at variance. In going over the mass of 
evidence on this point, which can be gleaned from every life of 
Lincoln that has been written, I am constrained to the belief 
that the testimony is often colored by the particular religious 
belief or bias of the witness, consequently to a great extent, I 
shall adhere to the plan of laying before you Mr. Lincoln's own 
words, and of leaving to you the decision of what his religious 
belief really was. 

In early life his religious privileges in this direction were 
limited to occasional services held by itinerent preachers, and 
almost the first notice we have of anything of the kind is the 
fact that the boy Abraham, then ten years old, made a horse- 
back journey of sixty miles to bring a Campbellite preacher to 
preach a funeral service in memory of his mother, who had then 
been dead several months, there being no preacher at hand to 
perform this service at the time of her death. 

It should also be borne in mind that this peculiarly reticent 
man where his own feelings were concerned, was especially reti- 
cent in matters of his own religious belief. 

It is a matter beyond controversy that as a young man, after 
having read Paine's "Age of Reason," he wrote an essay, or series 
of essays against the authenticity and authority of the Bible, 
and, indeed, against the Christian religion in general; which writ- 
ings were consigned to the flames by a very wise friend of his. 
At this time he was living with his father, Thomas Lincoln, in 
Illinois, where the father soon united with what is called the 
"Campbellite" church, and died in that faith. 

A careful biographer says: "I think we may say that Abra- 
ham Lincoln's belief was clear and fixed, so far as it went, but 
that he rejected important dogmas which are or have been con- 
sidered essential to salvation by some of the evangelistic denom- 
inations." 

He was an habitual reader of the Bible, and was more fa- 
miliar with its contents than most clergymen. His study of 
the Bible and familiarity with its pages are shown in his liter- 
ary style and frequent quotations. In 1864 he wrote his old 
friend, Joshua Speed, "I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. 
Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance 
upon faith, and you will live and die a better man." 

I quote again from a letter to a friend, "Whenever any 
church will inscribe over its altar as a qualification for mem- 
bership the Saviour's statement of the substance of the Law 
and Gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy 
neighbor as thyself,' that church will I join with all my heart 
and soul." 

10 



Judge Gillespie, an intimate friend of Lincoln, recounts the 
following, in an interview with Lincoln that took place in Jan- 
uary preceeding his inauguration; 

Lincoln said, "Separation is only possible upon the consent 
of this Government, to the erection of a foreign slave govern- 
ment out of the present slave states." 

"I see the duty devolving upon me. I have read upon my 
knees the story of Gethsemane, where the Son of God prayed 
that the cup of bitterness might pass from him. 

"I am in the Garden of Gethsemane, and my cup of bitter- 
ness is full and overflowing." 

In the closing words of his parting speech to his neighbors 
and friends at Springfield before he started on the long jour- 
ney, never to return to them, he said: 

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether, even, I may 
return, with a task before me greater than that which rested 
upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being 
who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, 
I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me and rsmain 
with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope 
that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope 
you in your prayers will commend ine, I bid you all an affection- 
ate farewell." 

In one of his speeches he said, "I know that the Lord is al- 
ways on the side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and 
prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." 

On one occasion a clergyman from a little village in Central 
New York came to Washington for the purpose of recovering the 
body of a gallant young captain who had been killed at the sec- 
ond battle of Bull Run. Having been presented to Mr. Lincoln, 
the latter inquired in a pleasant tone what he could do for his 
visitor; the clergyman replied, "I have not come to ask any favors 
of you, Mr. President, I have only come to say that the loyal 
people of the North are sustaining you and will continue to do 
so. We are giving you all that we have, — the lives of our sons 
as well as our confidence and our prayers. You must know that 
no pious father or mother ever kneels in prayer these days 
without asking God to give you strength and wisdom." With 
tears in his eyes, Lincoln thanked his visitor and said, "But 
for those prayers I should have faltered and perhaps failed long 
ago. Tell every father and mother you know to keep on praying 
and I will keep on fightinor, for I am sure that God is on our side." 

As the clergyman started to leave the room, Lincoln held him 
by the hand and said, "I suppose I may consider this a sort of 
pastoral call." "Yes," replied the clergyman. "Out in our coun- 
try," continued Lincoln, "when a parson made a pastoral call it 
was always the custom for the folks to ask him to lead in prayer, 
and I should like to ask you to pray with me today; pray that I 
may have strength and wisdom." The two men knelt side by side 
before a settee, and the clergyman offered the most fervent ap- 

11 



peal to the Almighty Power that ever fell from his lips. As they 
rose, Lincoln grasped his visitor's hand and remarked in a satis- 
fied sort of way, — "I feel better." 

After the battle of Gettysburg, while visiting General Sickles 
who was badly wounded at that battle, the General asked Lincoln 
how he felt during the days of the battle and the few days which 
preceded it. Lincoln hesitated but finally replied, "I will tell you 
how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there, when 
everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was 
going to happen, I went into my room one day and locked the 
door, and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed 
to Him mightily for a victory at Gettysburg. I told God that if 
we were to win the battle He must do it, for I had done all I 
could. I told Him this was His war, and our cause was His cause, 
but that we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellors- 
ville. And then and there I made a solemn vow to Almighty God 
that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg I would stand 
by Him. And He did, and I will. And after that — I don't know 
how it was, and I can't explain it, but soon — a sweet comfort 
crept into my soul that things would go all right at Gettysburg, 
and that is why I had no fears about you." 

John G. Nicolay, who probably knew Lincoln as thoroughly 
and was as familiar with his opinions as any one, said: 

"I do not remember ever having discussed religion with Mr. 
Lincoln, nor do I know of any authorized statement of his views 
in existence. He sometimes talked freely, and never made any 
concealment of his belief or unbelief in any dogma or doctrine 
but never provoked religious controversies. I speak more from 
his disposition and habits than from any positive declaration on 
his part. He frequently made remarks about sermons he had 
heard, books he had read, or doctrines that had been advanced, 
and my opinion as to his religious belief is based upon such casual 
evidences. There is not the slightest doubt that he believed in 
a Supreme Being of omnipotent power and omniscient watchful- 
ness over the children of men, and that this great Being could 
be reached by prayer. Mr. Lincoln was a praying man; I know 
that to be a fact. And I have heard him request people to pray 
for him, which he would not have done had he not believed that 
prayer is answered. Many a time have I heard Mr. Lincoln ask 
ministers and Christian women to pray for him, and he did not 
do this for effect. He was no hypocrite and had such reverence 
for sacred things that he would not trifle with them." 

"It would be difficult for any one to define Mr. Lincoln's 
position or to classify him among the sects. I should say that 
he believed in a good many articles in the creeds of the ortho- 
dox churches and rejected a good many that did not appeal to 
his reason. He praised the simplicity of the Gospels. He often 
declared that the Sermon on the Mount contained the essence 
of all law and justice, and that the Lord's Prayer was the sub- 
limest composition in human language. He was a constant 



reader of the Bible, but had no sympathy with theology, and 
often said that in matters affecting a man's relation with his 
Maker he couldn't give a power of attorney," 

In one of his campaigns in which he was a candidate for 
some state office, in campaigning his own district he found that 
of twenty-three ministers all but three were against him. The 
main issue in the campaign in which he was engaged was the 
question of slavery. The attitude of these preachers se^ni"- to 
have cut Lincoln to the quick. "These men well know," he said, 
"that I am for freedom in the Territories, freedom everywhere 
as free as the Constitution and the laws will permit, and that 
my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this 
book in their hands (the Bible) in the light of which human 
bondage cannot live a m.oment, they are going to vote against 
me; I do not understand it at all. I know there is a God, and 
that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and 
I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for 
me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but 
Truth is everything; I know I am right, because I know that 
liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have 
told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and 
Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so. I 
may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated, 
and these men will find they have not read their Bible right." 

I ask you to take this somewhat disjointed, and I confess 
badly put together evidence, add to it the references to God 
and the hereafter in his well known public documents and ut- 
terances, weigh the evidence from the standpoint of what is 
now considered necessary to constitute a Christian man, and 
draw your own conclusions as to this much discussed question. 

There is no need that at this time the closing events of the 
war should be recounted. The mighty struggle of four years, 
during which Lincoln was the chieftain of one of the contend- 
ing forces, was drawing to a close. Slavery was forever abol- 
ished. Richmond had fallen, and the shattered remains of 
Lee's army had been quietly paroled at Appomattox. The whole 
North was jubilant over the ending of a war, costly in blood 
and treasure, a joy which, in some of its essential features, was 
shared by our brethren of the South. 

The general rejoicing at Washington and at the army, was 
reflected in President Lincoln. But the shadow which had ap- 
peared on his worn face from the first year of the war, and which 
was more apparent each year of its progress, was not fully lifted. 
The iron of blood-shed and strife had entered too deeply into the 
great soul of this peace-loving man. The strain of four years of 
his high office, with its enormous demands upon him, had under- 
mined his vitality to such an extent that the natural melancholy 
of his temperament was constantly in the ascendency. A pre- 
sentiment, a sort of strange prescience of an impending tragedy, 
which he had cherished and given expression to many times dur- 

13 



ing his presidency, seemed to darken the horizon, now brilliantly 
lighted with the flashing fires of returning peace. 

On the 14th of April, while attending Ford's Theatre at 
Washington, the earthly life of Abraham Lincoln was ended by 
the bullet of an assassin, of whom it may be said that he acted 
without other sanction than that of his own fanatical and ill- 
balanced nature. 

The great heart had ceased to beat. On his dull ears the 
praises and lamentations of those who loved him, and the de- 
tractions and complaints of those who hated or misunderstood 
him, were alike powerless. The voice, raised often in defense 
of the weak and oppressed, in words of kindliness and charity 
toward his enemies, in exhortation to faithfulness to the Union, 
was stilled forever. 

He had lead his people for four years up through the wilder- 
ness of fratricidal strife and bloodshed, had looked over across 
the Jordan into the promised land of peace, had seen in prophetic 
visions the flag he loved floating over a free and united people, 
but into that land of promise it had been decreed that he should 
never enter. 

Three score years have now passed since the nation stood 
with uncovered heads and chastened spirits while his worn form 
was borne by tender hands to its last resting place in the soil of 
his adopted state where he grew from an obscure country lawyer 
to become the foremost statesman of his age. 

As years pass by, a grateful nation more and more appre- 
ciative of his genius and services, justly studies with increasing 
earnestness the mystery of his power, and in every land and 
clime throughout the whole world there are to be found those 
who hold in reverent wonder, the name and memory of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

FINALLY 

How shall we account for this man? We say with those of 
old. Whence has this man this wisdom, and may even truthfully 
carry the inquiry further and say, "Is not this the son of the 
carpenter?" Let us look to the source from which the biographer 
usually finds the springs of the greatness of his hero. 

Do we scan his ancestry for unusual hereditary talents and 
virtues — a glance forbids a second look. Was it contact with the 
seats of learning and the high priests of erudition, that devel- 
oped and shaped this clean-cut and logical mind? We are an- 
swered by the few months of attendance at the frontier schools, 
whose teachers were semi-illiterate, and amid an atmosphere about 
him of the most elementary sort. Was his towering greatness 
due to the help and patronage of those who stood in the high 
places of the nation, or of the rich and powerful relations? Our 

14 



words come back to us refuted by the memory of his long strug- 
gle with poverty, which closed only a few years before his 
election to the presidency. 

I shall now make answer to the question in an expression 
of my own opinion as to the source of Lincoln's greatness, in 
which I shall run the risk of being considered old-fashioned 
and out of date. 

We are told that when God wished a leader to bring Israel 
out of the bondage of Egypt, he raised up Moses. Later, when 
the security and solidity of the twelve tribes was in danger, he 
raised up David. Coming down later, time would fail to tell of 
Paul, of St. Augustine, of Luther and of our own Washington. 
Finally in the course of time, for the preservation of a great 
nation and its government, and the consequent good to all 
mankind, through a government of the people and by the people, 
for the people, came the necessity for a man whose prophetic 
cry from the wilderness was, "A nation half slave and half free, 
cannot exist." That man, provided by the God who rules the 
world, was at hand when the call came, born and bred in such 
obscurity that the records of his humble origin are meager and 
not easily found; not in the lap of luxury, not in soft clothing 
or amid the classic halls of learning, but amid the common 
people-^the kind of people whom the great Galilean chose as 
his friends and disciples. Up to within a short time before his 
nomination in Chicago, he was comparatively unknown to the 
great majority of the nation he was to save. He was at once 
true to the cry with which he came; amid variety of opinions 
and counsels, he alone was firm and steadfast in his belief in 
the people, and with inspired wisdom and sagacity, guided the 
counsels of the nation, until, with the ending of human slavery 
in the country, and the re-union of the hostile sections in full 
view, he was so suddenly called from his labors by the assassin's 
bullet. 

Truly it may be said of the Great Emancipator, that he is 
not a type; he stands alone. He had no ancestors, no fellows, 
and no successors. 



15 



